Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986) Chicago Neo Noir

Directed by John McNaughton (Wild Things, Mad Dog and Glory). Written by Richard Fire and John McNaughton.

Cinematography was by Charlie Lieberman. Music was by Ken Hale, Steven A. Jones, and Robert McNaughton. 

From an essay The Death of Film Noir discussing the nine original Film's Noir from Charles O’Brien who researched the use of “film noir” before the war in Film Noir In France: Before The Liberation. by William Ahern:

"None of these films are about private detectives hard-boiled or otherwise and none of them are police procedurals or stories where the police – or any member of governmental society – are seen as heroic. The films are about the working class and those below the working class or, in a few films, what was once referred to as the Lumpenproletariat. In fact, there isn’t a single crime film – as that term is conventionally used – in the list. “Pépé Le Moko,” a film that centers on a fugitive criminal hiding in the Casbah of Algiers, is a film about memory and desire more than anything else and its suicide ending has to do with facing what the character believes he has lost and not the possibility of incarceration."

The film stars Michael Rooker (Crime Story TV, Mississippi Burning, Sea Of Love, Fallen Angels TV, The Replacement Killers, Brown's Requiem) as Henry, Tom Towles (House of 1000 Corpses, Night Of The Living Dead) as Otis, Tracy Arnold (The Borrower) as Becky. 

Michael Rooker as Henry

Tom Towles as Otis

Tracy Arnold as Becky

With David Katz as Henry's Boss, Eric Young as Parole Officer, Kurt Naebig as High School Jock, Ray Atherton as The Fence.

Story

Story begins with a series of slow zooms and pans of dead bodies aurally layered with the haunting sounds of the actual murders and these are intercut with sequences introducing Henry our 30 year old serial killer. 

Henry is on the road, circling around greater Chicagoland like a vulture. 

He got a sort of a dead upstairs, pasty-faced low IQ look whenever he's not in actual conversation. As if when you're not talking to him he's off in Never-never land. He's doing what he likes to do, killing at random. 

Random, because he, in one shot, is paying for his bill and flirting with a waitress. She apparently survives, because she doesn't appear to be one of the victims. 

1970 Chevy Impala

Henry drives around listening to Kid Tater and the Cheaters, in a dinged, rust rimmed, slime green, 1970 Chevy Impala beater, on his ?mission" in life. He's got anger management and mommy issues, big time.

He pulls into a mall / supermarket, parking lot and it soon becomes apparent as Henry watches various females walking back to their vehicles that now it's Henry's turn to do the shopping. Here we get a peek at how he goes about making his next random selection. One woman wearing sunglasses pauses for a second too long looking at Henry, as she backs out of the space next to him. Bingo!

We follow Henry tailing her in the Chevy but this is one that gets away when after she pulls into her driveway her husband comes out to help with the groceries. 

Henry next picks up a a brunette hitchhiker with a guitar case. After she gets in the Chevy the screen fades to black. 

We cut to a waiting room at Midway Airport. Sitting up against a plate glass window is Becky a blonde young woman in her mid twenties. She wearing jeans and a jean jacket, looks a bit disheveled, a bit down on her luck. 

Enter Otis, a tall goober wearing a black, Jack Daniels Old  No.7 Brand, Tennessee Whiskey baseball cap. a brown jacket over a checkered shirt, blue jeans and a droopy handlebar mustache.

Otis is Becky's brother. Through their catching up conversation at the airport and while driving in Otis's 1982 Ford LTD back to his dump, we find out that Becky took off and married a guy named Leroy, that didn't work out. Leroy is in the slammer for murder. 

Otis: Before you got married I told you he was no damn good. I told you he was trash and that he's always be trash and he was gonna catch it. 

Becky, we find out, was also a "nekkid" dancer, though in defence she claims that she wore a "costume." Let your imaginations run wild. Becky has a daughter named Lureen, who she left in their mothers care. 

Otis shares an apartment with Henry. Over breakfast Becky discusses her ambitions with her brother. 

Otis: So what kind of work are you planning on getting up here, anything like...

Becky: I haven't decided yet.

Otis: What else can you besides dance nekkid?

Becky: Don't start with me Otis, I can do lots of things, mister.

Otis: Yea. Like what?

Becky: Waitressing, or beautician. 

Otis: Yea

Becky: Just seeing you I may try brain surgery. 

Otis: You're a card. 

Becky: Yea I'm the queen.

Otis: Yea queen of clubs... [Otis shakes his chest]

At about this point we hear the apartment door open. Into the kitchen walks Henry. He's carrying a guitar case. He lays it on the kitchen table and tells Otis its a present for him. Otis opens it up and starts picking away. 

Becky is looking a bit anxious since Otis hasn't introduced her yet. She gives the eye to Otis who  finally gets the message. He tells Henry that this is his sister Becky, remember, the one I told you about, who's going to stay with them for a while. 

A meet cute? lol.

Henry and Becky discuss the sleeping arrangements, and then he explains he's got to go to his job. He grabs a maroon colored jacket and  splits. 

When Becky asks Otis where he met Henry, Otis replies the name of a state prison. Becky continues asking what was he in for? Otis replies that don't tell Henry I told you but he killed his mother.

We cut to Henry on the job, spraying insecticide around a kitchen. This segues into sequence between Henry and his current boss. The boss man dressed in a loud jacket explains to Henry that it's slow right now, but he always gets calls from customers that want you there tomorrow. 

David Katz as Henry's Boss

He gives Henry some extra dough, to hold him over as a retainer. When the boss starts walking away Henry reminds him about the spray can and dispenser. The boss tells him to hang on to it. 

We cut to Henry using the jacket and dispenser to trap another victim, a housewife. She lets him in and we again cut to a slow pan of the victim.

We cut to Otis who works at a service station. Sells drugs on the side and is probably a pervert. 

The next day back in their apartment, after a striped bass dinner, Otis excuses himself to do a drug deal, leaving Becky with Henry. 

Becky clears the dishes and asks Henry if he'd like to play cards. Over a card game Becky starts getting nosey.

Becky: Did you really kill your mama?

Henry: I guess I did.

Becky: How'd it happen?

Henry: I stabbed her.

Becky: Otis said you hit her with a baseball bat.

Henry:  Otis said that?

Henry:  Well, he's mistaken.

Becky:  Well don't tell him I told you. He made me promise.

[pause]

Becky:  She must have treated you real bad.

Henry: She was a whore. My mama was a whore. But I don't fault her for that. It ain't what she done, but how she done it. Long as I can remember, she'd bring men up to the house. My daddy was there too, but it didn't matter none to her. She'd make me watch.

Becky: That's creepy.

Henry: She'd beat me too. A lot. She'd beat me when I wouldn't watch it. And sometimes she'd beat me, and make me wear a dress, and watch her doin' it. Then they'd laugh at me.

Becky: She made you wear a dress?

Henry: You think I'm lyin?

Becky: I feel like I know you, like I've known you for a long time. I feel like I've known you forever and ever.

Henry: Yeah. I killed my mama. One night. It was my 14th birthday. She was drunk, and we had an argument. She hit me with a whiskey bottle. I shot her. I shot her dead.

Becky: I thought you said you stabbed her.

Henry: Oh yeah, that's right, I stabbed her.

Becky relates her own miserable childhood to Henry, explaining that she feels she known him all her life...

Becky: I can't ever remember really liking my daddy. I wanted to, I really did. One time he bought me - when I was about five - he bought me an ice cream cone and I dropped it. And he slapped me and made me pick it up and eat it. I never liked my daddy. One time, when my mama was at work, and I was about 13, he'd come into my room and he, uh, told me to take my shirt off' 'cause he wanted to see how I was developed. And when I wouldn't, he got really mad and he-and he hit me. And he told me he had a right because he was my daddy and I was his daughter and, uh, he fed me and let me live in his house and he could do whatever he wanted... and he did. Then he started coming into my room a lot after that, and I didn't fight him because when I did, he just hit me. I was afraid I was gonna have a baby and that my baby would be deformed. But I never got pregnant. I tried to tell mama, but she didn't wanna hear about it. She pretended not to believe me but I knew she did. It sure is good to talk - to talk to you, Henry, because I know you're not judgemental or anything like that. I never would have married Leroy in the first place if I hadn't wanted to get away from daddy so bad.

Henry: Didn't get along with your daddy, huh?

Well Duh!!! Right? Henry isn't playing with a full deck obviously.

We get a sequence of Becky looking for a job. She finally scores one as a shampoo girl at a beauty salon called Fox Hair. We get get another after dinner sequence, where Becky shows the boys a new T-shirt she bought. . 

She wants them to go out and have some fun and suggests that they go out and have a beer. 

It all goes Noirsville when Henry and Otis after driving around on the main stems pick up a couple of street prostitutes.

Henry and Otis bring the hookers a back alley decorated with dumpster and trash piles, for some in the car sex. 

Henry's "date" get a little to aggressive complaining about something, and Henry breaks her neck. When the other hooker with Otis starts screaming, Henry breaks her neck also and then drags both bodies out of the car to the trash pile.

Otis is shaken up at first, panicking. Henry tells him not to worry nobody is going to connect them to the killings. They buy some burgers and fries after a hard nights work.

Noirsville

Ray Atherton as The Fence

Eric Young as Parole Officer

The film was shot on 16mm film in 28 days and cost $110,000 to produce. Family and friends were used for the supporting characters and the extras were shot guerilla style on the streets of Chicago.   

"Roger Ebert, for example, called Henry "a very good film" and a "low-budget tour de force", and wrote that the film attempts to deal "honestly with its subject matter, instead of trying to sugar-coat violence as most 'slasher' films do." Both Ebert and fellow critic Gene Siskel gave the film two thumbs up on Siskel & Ebert." ( Ebert, Roger (September 14, 1990))

The cinematography has a lot of visual style. The gritty pallet favors puke yellows, monkey shit browns, carnal reds juxtaposed with neon light garnish, the characters all fully believable low lifes. It's even shot in 1.33: Bravo! 8/10.